


The Way We Look to a Distant Constellation

by 30toseoul



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s01e10 The Storm, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/30toseoul/pseuds/30toseoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is mostly for my city, but Radek and Atlantis helped me to write it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We Look to a Distant Constellation

Radek is about five hundred yards from the stargate when he remembers what he forgot. Before he can stop himself, he turns around and nearly plows face-first into Sergeant Bates.

Bates tenses automatically: finger sliding toward the safety of his P-90, eyes doing a fast scan of the people walking ahead before he focuses on Radek, frowning. "Problem, doc?"

"Ah, no. No problem, Sergeant." He tries for offhand, but he can't keep himself from looking over Bates's shoulder at the Manarian stargate.

Bates glances at the gate, then back at Radek, his expression sliding toward impatience. "C'mon, doc. Time to get people settled."

"Yes, of course."

Radek turns quickly away from the gate. Because he's being ridiculous, and he knows it. He can't ask to redial Atlantis simply because he left his good luck charm behind.

.

He's had it for almost fifteen years, since his first trip to the States to interview for a visiting professorship. He still remembers standing in the crowded Boston airport bar, nervously sucking down smooth American cigarettes and horrid American beer to brace himself for the return flight. Even the hockey game on the bar's televisions couldn't distract him.

On his way out, Radek saw the vendor's table and the bin of good luck charms from the corner of his eye. He bought one almost without thinking, vibrating with alcohol and nicotine and fear. A tiny doll about four inches tall, painted china face and colorful sand-stuffed body.

He squeezed it desperately in his hand through every bump and lurch of turbulence, squeezed it until the plane landed safely in London, and then decided that her name was Otka, for luck.

.

Their hosts have placed the Atlantis refugees in a collection of shabby huts in a common on the edge of town. They have the look of rough military barracks, and the dust and occasional scuttling rodents say that they haven't been used for a long time.

It's colder on Manara, almost winter. Radek is frantically busy for the first hour, hooking up portable heaters to the single naquada generator that they could spare to bring along.

And then, quite suddenly, there is nothing for him to do.

He checks the heaters in sequence again, makes some minor adjustments to the naquada output. Then he's at a complete loss. He hasn't enjoyed being under the impending threat of death since they arrived in Atlantis, but he hadn't realized how much the near-constant work has become a part of him.

Everything is on hold. There's too much time to think.

.

His nephew once took Otka from his luggage during a visit. Radek had to steal her back when the little _spratek_ was sleeping. He couldn't understand why the boy would want her, anyway. She's ugly, strange-looking with her painted grimace and staring eyes and wild straw hair. It's part of what he likes. He thinks of her like a curse that scares away the bad luck.

.

Winter means shorter days on any planet; it's nearly dark when Bates comes back from a scheduled check-in at the stargate, tracks down Radek and Peter, and tells them in a low, hard voice that Atlantis isn't answering his G.D.O.

Radek checks his watch, though he hardly needs to. "That shouldn't be--even the outer bands of the storm won't strike Atlantis for another--"

"--hour, I know," Bates finishes harshly. "Lieutenant Ford was due to come through with Beckett and Emmagen. They stayed back to get those three Athosian kids. Even if they got stuck on the mainland, Atlantis should be answering me. They aren't."

Some of the Athosians lit a fire at dusk. In the flickering light, Radek sees Peter swallow hard, sees him look back and forth between Radek and Bates.

They're facing each other in an equal triangle, standing on a bare patch of ground away from the huts. Radek has a long, terrible flash of the possible future that they haven't talked about. All of them pushed into the empty leadership roles if the Atlantis gate never responds again, if they're stranded on a strange world.

Peter looks like he's reaching for his composure, but his voice is steady. "Keep your team at the gate, Sergeant. Dial Atlantis at ten-minute intervals until twenty before stormfall. We don't want to lock up the gate if they're trying to dial out."

It's all that Bates seems to need. He says, "Yes, sir," and jogs off immediately, not looking back.

When Peter turns to him, Radek almost wants to run away. He doesn't want to start talking about the storm projections and the city structure and what might happen later, because he knows better than anyone except for Rodney that directing the lightning to the shield generators is not a certain thing. It was only the best they could do.

He wants to hug Peter when he says, "Alright, Radek, we need to find Halling and tell him what's happening. The families of those kids have to be worried."

.

Radek can see where he left her. He doesn't know why he keeps thinking about this, not when the whole of Atlantis and nine people, six of them his good friends, could be dying at any moment. He can still see it, the shelf above his usual workstation, Otka's tiny blue-striped legs hanging off the edge. It would have been so easy to grab her while he was packing his laptop. He forgot to do it.

.

Radek's respect for Peter rises to infinite levels when Peter doesn't try to hide the truth. He tells Halling exactly what they know.

It isn't long before the entire camp seems to know.

Radek watches people filtering out to stand by the fire, talking quietly. Some of the Marines work with the Athosians to light two more fires nearby when the crowd grows bigger. People spread out and sit down on blankets, and he can see them passing food and bottles of drink and rolls of Athosian tobacco.

Nothing is relaxed about this. He watches them for a few minutes longer, thinking in a dark part of his mind that it might be good if everyone is bonded as closely as they can. Then he goes to check the generator and the heaters again.

.

The flights back and forth to Antarctica were some of the worst things he's ever done, almost worse than when they thought Atlantis would implode around them.

So incredibly _loud_ , and he couldn't see anything outside because there were only tiny windows in a few places on the military planes. He couldn't tell if they were thirty thousand feet in the air or about to crash into the sea. Five and a half hours of stark terror with Otka crushed in his fist.

Radek knows that he's being a fool, that adults should not believe in these things, but his mind keeps returning helplessly to that shelf in Atlantis, and he feels like he betrayed Otka by leaving her there. Like he's already lost something that he'll never get back.

.

It's quieter when he finally makes himself go back to the communal area. They aren't talking so much now, but everyone is still together. Watching the fires, passing drinks back and forth, the children asleep in the corners of the blankets.

They're much too far from the gate to see it. Radek remembers the way they walked, though. Even though he was a lousy soldier all those years ago, in his short time before the _revoluce_. He still has a sense of direction, and he remembers how they walked from the gate.

He finds a spot near the edge of the camp to sit and watch, to look east. Waiting and hoping until they can gather their things and go home.

  
_._  
end  
.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in the Livejournal **welovezelenka** community on 28 August 2006.
> 
> I was living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and wrote this story a year later.


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